Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – The kidnapping of 12 hostages, including a South Korean businessman, in Indonesia's troubled Irian Jaya province, is suspected to be a "fake" one, staged to discredit the separatist rebels.

Local non-government groups are suspicious because the Free Papua Movement (OPM) commander credited with the abduction, Willem Onde, has close ties to Kopassus, an elite army unit, as well as to the Korean timber company PT Korindo, for which all of the twelve hostages were working for.

"We're suspicious about this abduction because everytime Onde goes to Merauke he stays with Kopassus," said Mr Aloi Renwarin, Vice-Director of Legal Aid group ELSHAM. Mr Aloi also said he doubted that OPM has actually kidnapped anybody because it had a surveillance hut built by the Korean company.

Police spokesman Zulkifli said the rebels were demanding US$1 million (S$1.74 million) in compensation for the logging operations and that the company cease operating in the area.

However a spokesman for the company said the rebels had not contacted the company. There are doubts over whether a special police and army investigation team had yet made contact with the rebels.

According to staff from the Merauke police station, the team left the city yesterday for the site of the kidnapping located 400 kilometres away, and was still to report back.

Mr Onde has long been suspected of being a collaborator of the Indonesian army. But in a recent interview with weekly Tempo, he denied working for the Indonesian army, saying that the rumours about him were designed to turn Papuans against him. On the other hand, this is not the first time the OPM has used hostage taking to attract international attention.

Augustinus Rumansara from World Wide Fund for Nature said the kidnapping might have occurred because many Papuans opposed the South Korean company for discriminating them against the Indonesians and for insufficient land compensation.