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Irian Jaya hardliners threaten guerrilla warfare

Source
Agence France Presse - December 3, 2000

Jayapura – Frustrated hardline separatists in Indonesia's Irian Jaya province have threatened to use guerrilla warfare to resurrect their campaign, after police stepped up a crackdown on their activities.

Leaders of the central highlands-based Penis Gourd Council of Elders (DMK), introduced by Papua Presidium deputy leader Tom Beanal as "the hardline members of the presidium," said their approach from now on would be two-pronged.

"We will use guerrilla tactics through the Free Papua Movement (OPM), and dialogue with the central government through the Papua Presidium," Petrus Tabuni, a district leader of the council, told AFP. "The OPM, from hideouts in the jungles, will attack Indonesian soldiers and any non-Papuans who conspire with them to hide them or their weapons," Tabuni said.

He said that should the soldiers hide within the population, the OPM and the DPK fighters, named after the traditional male outfits of the Dani tribe, would not only target soldiers but also all non-Papuans. "Us Dani people tolerate non-Papuans, but brutal military actions anger the Papuan people which can cause them to kill anyone including civilians."

Hans Yoweni, district commander of the OPM in Bonggo, 120 kilometres west of here, declared his disgust at the presidiums moderate approach. He told a rights monitoring organisation on Saturday that he was preparing to launch attacks before year end.

"He said the OPM, who started the struggle in the beginning, feel that theyve been left out by the presidium," John Rumbiak, head of the Institute for Advoacy and Human Right (Elsham) told AFP. "He said that for us the flag as a symbol of our political aspirations, we dont allow it to be pulled down, but it happened. So he said I will consolidate and I will fight ... before the year 2001."

Both the DMK and OPM oppose an agreement struck between the presidium, police and the provincial government on November 9 to restrict the separatist Morning Star flag to flying in five places only across the province, also known as West Papua.

"We fiercely disagree with pulling down the flag but we were forced to accept it on Friday night because the police got tough and people would have died. So we gave in to stop people dying," Tabuni said.

Rumbiak called the agreement a "tragic decision, detrimental to the whole independence struggle". "It has created a very shaky situation. It is being used now by the government to clamp down on political activities," he said, citing Saturdays fatal police shooting of six independence supporters after they raised the Morning Star in the southern border town of Merauke.

Provincical police chief Brigadier General Sylvanus Wenas said police opened fire on the supporters because they violated the agreement, which took effect on Saturday.

"These killings will create more frustration among the people. Im really scared there will be an escalation of conflict after this," Rumbiak said. "When the people are frustated the hardliners will step in, and my fear is that not all of them are pure. Many of them collaborate with the security forces to create trouble," he said.

Rumbiak said the November 9 agreement had also widened a rift between moderates referred to as the "coastal people" and hardline elements in the central highlands referred to as "highlanders."

Beanal and fellow presidium member Willy Mandowen insist conflicts over the agreement have been ironed out. "You have seen us arguing with each other. But we are one," Beanal told journalists on Saturday night.

Rumbiak however says the conflict was still simmering, fuelled also by human rights abuses committed in the highlands by Papuan soldiers recruited by the Indonesian military from the coastal districts of Biak and Serui. "The seed of conflict has already spread, between the presidium and the radicals from the provinces central highlands," he said. "The situation now just needs a trigger to explode."

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