Michael Richardson, Tembagapura – Nestled in a small valley 1,850 meters above sea level with cliffs and forest-clad mountains towering above, this company mining town with its subsidized canteen, store, clubs and bars is aptly called Tembagapura, or Copper City, in the Indonesian language.
Further up the precipitous road hacked out of the jungle is a mine that is one of the world's largest producers of gold and copper. Its production is worth nearly $1.5 billion for the company that runs the project, PT Freeport Indonesia.
But the mine in these remote, glacier-capped mountains of Irian Jaya, Indonesia's easternmost province, is now caught in an intensifying tug-of war between indigenous Papuans demanding independence and the central government in Jakarta, which is determined to prevent any further fragmentation of the sprawling island-nation.
Separatist fighters operating from bases near the border with Papua New Guinea are threatening to attack Indonesian troops and settlers unless Jakarta agrees to give the province independence by Friday. That is the anniversary of a declaration of sovereignty made 39 years ago, on December 1, 1961, when the former colonial power, the Netherlands, relinquished control and before Indonesia took over.
"On December 1, we will have independence," said Izhak Onawame, an evangelical priest who heads the local branch of Irian Jaya's pro-independence organization in Timika, the main town in the Freeport project area. "There is no turning back."
A member of the organization's armed wing, who accompanied Mr. Onawame at a recent interview and gave his name as Major Tonchay, said that if Indonesia refused to accept Irian Jaya's sovereignty, there would be fighting. "We are ready to kill or be killed," he added.
In anticipation of the deadline, the Indonesian police have intensified their hunt for key Irian Jaya separatists. On Thursday, they arrested a third leader of the group and said that all three, who include the chairman of the pro-independence Papua Presidium Council, Theys Eluay, would be charged with treason. Conviction carries a maximum term of life in prison.
Although Freeport, which is 81 percent-owned by Freeport-McMoRan Copper Gold Inc. of the United States, says it has spent in the last decade alone more than $150 million to build schools, houses, places of worship, a modern hospital and community facilities to ensure local support, it is vulnerable to possible raids by extremists. "Major companies could be used as pawns in Irian Jaya in the struggle to gain independence," an executive said.
Freeport-McMoRan's share price has fallen 65 percent since January to around $7.50, down from around $35 two and a half years ago, when President Suharto seemed to be firmly in power. While lower metal prices have played a role, executives and analysts said the main reason for the slump was the perception among investors of greatly increased political risk since Mr. Suharto, a key patron of Freeport McMoRan's Indonesian operations, was forced to resign in May 1998.
Both of his successors, B.J. Habibie and now Abdurrahman Wahid, have faced increasing challenges in holding the world's fourth most populous nation together.
The United States, Australia and other countries that want Indonesia to remain united are concerned at the prospect of violence. They worry that a conflict in Irian Jaya would over stretch the Indonesian military and police forces, which are already struggling to contain sectarian and separatist unrest and increasing lawlessness in various parts of the country.
Separatist demands in Irian Jaya have increased this year, inspired partly by East Timor's overwhelming vote for independence from Indonesia in a UN plebiscite in 1999. The government of Mr. Wahid, which initially took a conciliatory approach, has hardened its stand under pressure from nationalists in the military and Parliament.
Last month in Wamena, in the Irian Jaya highlands, one of the main strongholds of pro-independence sentiment, 31 people, mainly settlers from other parts of Indonesia, were killed in violence that erupted after the police cut down flagpoles flying the Morning Star, a revered symbol of the separatists. "There will be no possibilities for Irian Jaya and Aceh to become independent and separate from Indonesia," the coordinating minister for political, social and security affairs, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a retired army general, said recently. "The unitary state of the Republic of Indonesia is final."
Jakarta has sent 1,300 new troops from the army's Kostrad strategic reserve command to Irian Jaya, bringing to more than 10,000 the number of Indonesian police forces and troops reported to be stationed in the province, including a 650-member police mobile brigade guarding the Freeport mine.
There are also persistent reports that the military has sent to Irian Jaya members of its Kopassus special forces, the unit blamed for organizing the militia gangs that carried out much of the violence and destruction in East Timor last year.
Unlike East Timor, which has few natural resources, both Irian Jaya and Aceh are valuable assets for Indonesia. Since it began exporting in 1972, Freeport has consistently been one of the largest taxpayers in a country that is chronically short of tax revenue.
But separatist leaders in Irian Jaya, like those in Aceh and other resource rich regions, accuse Jakarta of stealing provincial resources and giving little back in return.
The separatists also resent the large-scale settlement of people from other parts of Indonesia, either drawn by employment and trading opportunities or brought in by the government as part of a now discredited transmigration policy. This program moved people to the outer regions of Indonesia from Java and other densely populated central islands that have long controlled political and economic power in the country.
As a result, only about half Irian Jaya's estimated population of two million are now Papuans. Most of the indigenous people are Christians or animists, while many of the settlers are Muslim.
Like East Timor, a former Portuguese colony that was invaded by Indonesia in 1975 and later annexed, Irian Jaya is underdeveloped. It was also not part of the original Indonesia that won its independence from the Dutch in 1947.
Even under the Dutch, Irian Jaya, then known as West Papua, had been ruled from Jakarta only since the late 19th century. It had few historical, ethnic, linguistic or religious links with the Indonesian archipelago. The indigenous Papuans, like the people of Papua New Guinea and nearby South Pacific islands, are Melanesian, not Asian.
Advocates of independence for Irian Jaya say that an "act of free choice" conducted by the UN in 1969, which made the former Dutch territory part of Indonesia, was unrepresentative. Only 1,025 tribal and community leaders chosen by Indonesia took part.
The Papua People's Congress, which claims to represent the aspirations of the overwhelming majority of Papuans in Irian Jaya, met in June for the second time this year in the province capital, Jayapura, and set December 1 as the deadline for achieving sovereignty.