Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – Demonstrators rallied in Jayapura yesterday demanding that recently elected president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono allow international negotiators to end the decades-long conflict in Papua.

The protest by up to 500 students came as church leaders and civil groups began lobbying Mr Yudhoyono for Papuan self rule in Indonesia's easternmost province.

Many Papuans, who voted overwhelmingly for Mr Yudhoyono in the September elections, are hopeful he will finally implement a progressive autonomy law.

Church leaders, civil society leaders and Papua's Governor Jaap Salossa, will meet Mr Yudhoyono on Friday, two days after his inauguration. They will argue that if he wants to quell separatism in the province, formerly known as Irian Jaya and now often referred to as West Papua, he should implement progressive law.

On the campaign trail, Mr Yudhoyono promised to implement the special autonomy Bill, but stopped short of saying he would allow a Papuan people's assembly to be the province's highest law making body.

Under former president Megawati Sukarnoputri, Jakarta allowed Papua to receive a greater percentage of revenues from natural resources but wouldn't allow the regional parliament to establish the people's assembly, a kind of Upper House which had veto power over Parliament's budgets and policies.

Ms Megawati feared that establishing the assembly would allow tribal leaders to demand independence from Indonesia.

The progressive autonomy law, which effectively gives the Papuan Parliament self-government except for foreign affairs and security issues, was meant to offer Papuans an attractive alternative to independence and diminish support for the armed guerillas from the Free Papua Movement.

The poorly armed rebels have been fighting a sporadic guerilla war against the Indonesian military since 1969, when the United Nations sponsored a flawed ballot which accepted Papua's incorporation into Indonesia.