Indonesia says it hopes to resume military cooperation with the United States after a separatist rebel leader was charged over the deaths of two Americans in Papua almost two years ago. A US grand jury in Washington has indicted Anthonius Wamang on two counts of murder and eight counts of attempted murder over an ambush at the Freeport copper mine, near the town of Timika.

Presenter/Interviewer: Sen Lam

Speakers: John Rumbiak, international coordinator, ELSHAM, the Institute of Human Rights Studies & Advocacy in Papua

Rumbiak: Wamang has lived in Timika town for seven years now. He used to in the forest together with Kelly Kwalik, the guerrilla leader, but since the last seven years he has been living in Timika town. He has quite a good relationship with the military in terms of sandal wood business, as well as gold panning. And he travelled to Jakarta and Surabaya doing transactions.

And he got all the ammunitions from the military. You know he claims himself as a member of OPM, which is of course true that in the last seven years before he moved to the city, and he still claims that he's the field commander of the OPM. The problem is, as testified by Kelly Kwalik himself recently when he met with FBI agents in the bush around Freeport Mine when the FBI did their investigation, that Anthonius did a mistake and he didn't follow the order of Kelly Kwalik, the leader of the OPM.

Lam: The Indonesian senior police investigator, Dadang Garnida said that OPM rebels including Anthonius Wamang had been ordered by their leader, their operational leader Kelly Kwalik to attack American targets. Do you refute that?

Rumbiak: That was true, I mean I cannot deny that. There was an order from Kelly Kwalik as a leader to target the Freeport Mine, the facilities, right? But it was also very obvious that he said that in doing so, because of the frustration of the people regarding the devastation of their environment, the exploitation of their mountains, which they considered as their mother earth, and the ongoing human rights violations that occurred around the mine, committed by Indonesian military there guarding the mine, so they wanted to peacefully demonstrate by blocking the Freeport Mine. But he didn't order at all to attack any humans. And the documents are right now within the hands of the FBI. ELSHAM, in the last one and a half years until this June before the report by the US Attorney General came out, are working closely with FBI to refute this ambush. I have been contacting back and forth with Amungwe leaders, the tribe that Anthon Wamang belongs to, and I asked them to get Anthon Wamang and other people involved in the ambush to sit down, and he has to explain things if they did a mistake, and you know, we are human. For me if he's charged as attacking the Americans as a crime, that would be the right way to go. But classifying this attack as the work of a terrorist, like the way the western world, especially the Americans understand 'terrorist', is not the case of West Papua. And I'm not speaking on behalf of Free Papua Movement; I disagree with the whole violence taking place as a method of the OPM itself. But I want to tell you and the world that the policy of the OPM and the principles of the OPM, especially in the last ten years has changed dramatically after we begin to educate the people about human rights and the non-violent way of dealing with the issue.

Lam: A meeting will be convened in Timika today. What do you expect to emerge from the meeting?

Rumbiak: The meeting today involves the Amungwe chief tribes, community leaders of that tribe itself, including church leaders and activists, to talk about what happened and especially hear the testimony from Anthonius Wamang and other people that are involved. And after that they will come out with a statement that basically the statement will be an apology for what they have done and they want to stress and they want to raise to the international community that they're not terrorists.

Lam: Do you expect the meeting to resolve, to handover Anthonius Wamang...?

Rumbiak: Yes absolutely, that is one of the things that you know the first thing is that the leaders want to hear directly from himself. Papuan civil society groups, tribal leaders as well as the Papua Presidium Council and Free Papua Movement itself, they will send statements to apologise, but also tell the world that you know, we are just humans. Lam: So you expect Anthonius Wamang to be expelled from the community at Timika?

Rumbiak: Yes absolutely.

Lam: Into the arms of the Indonesian police?

Rumbiak: Yes, we have to enforce the laws. And that's why we want to have this meeting in Timika so that he's convinced and he has to surrender, and he has to tell the world why he did that. That's the most important thing.