Timothy Mapes, Jakarta – The Indonesian military's controversial behavior in resource-rich Papua province could threaten the country's political unity and one of its biggest planned foreign investments.
An independence movement has simmered for decades in Papua, formerly known as Irian Jaya, but it hasn't erupted into the open armed rebellion that has affected Aceh province on the opposite end of the archipelago.
President Megawati Sukarnoputri still has a chance to calm the situation and assuage popular demands for independence if she can convince Papuans that they can expect better treatment from Jakarta, say many Papuan community and religious leaders. But how Ms. Megawati deals with the armed forces in Papua, which lies on Indonesia's eastern frontier, will test her skill at holding this far-flung country together.
Western governments, while supporting Indonesia's territorial integrity, are carefully monitoring her efforts. US Ambassador to Indonesia Ralph Boyce visited the province earlier this week, after a visit by a delegation of European ambassadors last month.
But recent actions by the powerful military – which operates largely autonomously in Papua, is deeply involved in local businesses such as logging, and has violently suppressed separatist groups in the past – illustrate how difficult a challenge Ms. Megawati faces.
A special commission's investigation into the November murder of Papuan independence leader Theys Eluay has implicated members of an elite military unit, known as Kopassus, in the killing, say officials familiar with the inquiry's findings. The soon-to-be-concluded investigation has produced forensic evidence, including fingerprints, and eyewitness accounts that already have led to the arrest of three Kopassus soldiers formerly based in Papua's capital, Jayapura, say military officials.
Separately, the military in Papua is trying to intervene in one of Indonesia's biggest and most-promising investments: a $2 billion plan by British energy company BP PLC to develop a huge natural-gas project in the territory.
Last month, Maj. Gen. Mahidin Simbolon, the military commander for Papua, paid an unexpected visit to BP's base camp on Bintuni Bay, accompanied by about a dozen soldiers and their wives and girlfriends. The visitors strolled around the project site brandishing automatic weapons, witnesses say. Their presence "made us uncomfortable. It was at odds with how the camp is normally run," a BP official says.
In a meeting, Gen. Simbolon told BP officials that the military has an obligation under Indonesia's constitution to protect national assets such as BP's project. Although BP hopes to prevent the military from assuming control of security for its venture, Gen. Simbolon made it clear that only a ruling by Ms. Megawati could deter the armed forces from taking charge of security, say BP officials who attended the meeting.
The alleged military involvement in the Theys murder is the most sensitive political issue in Papua and Ms. Megawati's thorniest problem. Mr. Theys was the chairman of the Papuan Presidium, the leading advocate of a nonviolent struggle for independence for the territory. He was found strangled in November after he attended a party held by local military commanders. Witnesses told investigators they saw Mr. Theys's car forced to stop on his way home by another car that was later identified as belonging to Kopassus. Mr. Theys's car and body were found the next day in a ravine beyond four military checkpoints that usually prevent civilian cars from passing.
The findings pose a dilemma for Ms. Megawati, who has long maintained cordial ties with Indonesia's military – an institution that she has praised as the guardian of the nation.
Since coming to power in July, Ms. Megawati has tried to get Papuan residents to accept a future within Indonesia by offering the territory more revenue from its natural resources, and by pledging to allow wider scope for expression of Papua's culture. Ethnic Papuans, people of Melanesian descent indigenous to the island of New Guinea and neighboring islands, differ sharply in culture and religion from most other Indonesians whose ancestry lies in Asia. Papuans are largely Christian, while the vast majority of other Indonesians are Muslims.
Unless Ms. Megawati can show that she is prepared not only to punish soldiers directly involved in Mr. Theys's murder, but also to prosecute officers found to have ordered the killing, community leaders in Papua say the president's promises of a new deal for the territory will ring hollow.
"We need to see that she is committed to this," says Karel Phil Erari, a Papua priest and human-rights campaigner who is a member of the special commission investigating Mr. Theys's murder. "The people want to know who told Kopassus to kill Theys, and why."
Tom Beanal, the most senior official in the Papuan Presidium after the death of Mr. Theys, says, "If the Indonesian government fails to answer these questions, we would think that Indonesia is not serious in solving the problems in Papua."
Few military analysts expect Ms. Megawati will be able to deliver what the Papuans want, however. The Kopassus unit has a reputation for ruthlessness, and has long been deployed in some of Indonesia's hottest trouble spots, including Aceh and formerly Jakarta-controlled East Timor. Its members were accused of playing a key role in widespread violence against civilians after East Timor voted for independence in August 1999, behavior that prompted the US government to curtail military ties with Indonesia. Although Indonesia is currently conducting trials of a few officers implicated in those atrocities, no senior commanders have been charged.
"Kopassus is a very powerful and independent unit," says Kusnanto Anggoro, a military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta, who says the unit has considerable autonomy even from Indonesia's military high command. "I'm not sure whether justice will ever be revealed in this case," he says.
Indonesia's military commander, Adm. Widodo, has said the three Kopassus men suspected in the Theys murder will be punished severely if convicted.
While less likely to prompt immediate Papuan protests, the military's apparent effort to intervene in BP's gas project, ostensibly to protect it, poses a different kind of problem for Jakarta: It could put an important foreign investment at risk.
Aware of the potential dangers of operating in Papua under military "protection," BP had hoped to avoid the problems encountered by companies such as ExxonMobil Corp. in Aceh and Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. in Papua. Both those ventures are guarded by large contingents of Indonesian soldiers who have often clashed with local residents, prompting allegations of human-rights abuses in Indonesia and abroad. Critics have portrayed the foreign companies as witting or unwitting accomplices to the alleged abuses.
BP has hired military and security advisers to develop a "community-based security" program that it hopes will prevent its project from being caught in any future confrontation between soldiers and armed rebels – a situation that prompted ExxonMobil to close its liquefied-natural-gas plant in Aceh for four months last year. In ExxonMobil's case, human-rights activists have argued that the company is morally responsible for the alleged torture and killings of civilians by troops based in or around the company's facilities – charges that ExxonMobil rejects.
BP is now scrambling to show Jakarta that its community-policing plan can ensure the security of the plant – scheduled to be completed by 2006 – without the need for a military base on or near the site. "We do not envisage a direct, on-the-ground military presence at the project," says a BP spokesman.
A spokesman for Gen. Simbolon declined to comment on his recent visit to the BP site or on the military's view of security requirements in the area.
But the military might be difficult for BP to resist, given its past record of protecting foreign investments in the territory. An official from an environmental organization that works extensively in Papua contends that the military has a history of creating its own "security threats" to justify the need to employ its services. "Right now, there is no security threat at all," he says. "But six months from now, you can be sure there will be."