Chris McCall, Wamena – Police in Irian Jaya's remote Baliem Valley say they have removed all separatist Morning Star flags from the troubled region. Police chief Superintendent Daniel Suripatty vowed the flags would stay down permanently.
Anyone raising the symbol of West Papuan independence would face legal action for violating Indonesia's sovereignty, Superintendent Suripatty said.
In Jakarta, President Abdurrahman Wahid yesterday met the leader of the Irian Jaya independence movement, Theys Eluay, to discuss rising violence in the remote province. It was the first such meeting since 32 people were killed in violence that erupted after police using chainsaws hacked down poles flying the separatist flag in Wamena.
Mr Eluay, who left the meeting after 20 minutes, said: "There are still differences of opinion between Gus Dur [Mr Wahid's nickname] and the people of Papua."
Getting the contentious flags down in at least one major area is a victory for the authorities in a battle of wills. It follows an influx of police and military reinforcements into the valley after violence broke out on October 6 when police first tried to lower the flag in Wamena. The move prompted an angry backlash from indigenous people, who fought running battles for hours with arrows and spears.
After slow initial progress in the wake of the riots, the last of the flags was taken down at the weekend in the remote village of Tiom. A total of 29 Morning Star flags were removed in Wamena itself and many more in the surrounding districts. Under an agreement reached earlier this year, the separatists were allowed to fly just one of the flags in each district.
"We banned it," said Superintendent Suripatty, blaming the pro-independence camp for not sticking to the earlier agreement. "Twenty-nine is too many. Now they cannot fly one."
Jakarta is insisting the flag must come down across the province, although the police extended an October 19 deadline amid fears of new violence. On the island of Yapen, an area where particularly large numbers of the Morning Star flags are flying, the local police chief has set his own deadline of next Tuesday.
Almost three weeks after the fighting, Wamena remains calm but tense, with obvious distrust between the indigenous people and the migrants. Riot police with assault rifles can now be seen throughout the town, where the Indonesian flag now flies alone.
Police are still interrogating almost daily the senior pro-independence leaders, who have signed a form of "agreement". But many Papuans are unhappy with what they see as a one-sided deal.
Their leaders admit they felt pressured into signing it for the sake of preventing more bloodshed. The agreement obliged them not only to ensure the flags went down and stayed down but also to "guarantee" there was no further violence.
Superintendent Suripatty said the move was necessary. "Are they happy with peace or happy with chaos?" he said, adding that the separatist leaders were being questioned because they were responsible for the violence. "They said Papua was independent and it is not yet," he said. The police chief said officers were prepared for December 1, the day West Papuans regarded as "independence day".