Jakarta – The Indonesian military is stirring up unrest and intimidating residents in the remote province of Papua, an independence campaigner charged.
The security forces were trying to provoke "horizontal conflict" or violent reactions from students and other civilian groups in Papua, alleged Willy Mandowen, from the Papua Presidium, a group campaigning peacefully for Papuan independence.
"Some elements of the military are still playing a role in contributing to horizontal conflict as a way to maintain their operational budget," Mandowen told a gathering of foreign journalists.
Military units stationed in regions fraught with separatist or sectarian violence, such as Papua, are routinely given greater budget allocations.
Intimidation by the security forces was also widespread, forcing many Papuans to flee their villages, or to flee over the border to Papua New Guinea, or to Australia, said Mandowen.
The allegations come as Indonesia strongly disputed claims by 42 Papuan asylum-seekers that Indonesian forces are committing genocide in the province. Last month Canberra granted them temporary visas, a decision which has sparked a diplomatic row between the two countries.
"The 42 asylum-seekers are genunine asylum seekers because there are intimidation and threats," Mandowen said of the Papuans who left for Australia on an outrigger canoe in January."Last year alone in Puncak Jaya, 5,000 people were displaced because of military intimidation," he added, referring to people who reportedly fled their remote village in the highlands of Papua.
Mandowen also called on Jakarta to lift a de facto ban on foreign reporters entering the province, to improve the "humanitarian situation".
"Should we need a tsunami like in Aceh, that anyone can come to Papua?" he asked, referring to Jakarta's decision to lift a ban on foreign reporters in the former war-torn province of Aceh after it was battered by the tsunami.
Presidential spokesman Andi Mallarangeng denied there were ongoing violations, saying that Indonesian forces operating in Papua were under instructions to avoid any violence.
It was this sensitivity to human rights which had caused the death of four security officers in violent student protests in the Papuan capital of Jayapura last month, said Mallarangeng.
A small armed guerilla force, known as the Free Papua Movement (OPM), has been fighting Indonesian forces since the 1960s when Indonesia assumed control of the former Dutch colony.
Dismissing OPM as "never a serious security threat", political analyst Sidney Jones said Jakarta's biggest headache was not the guerrilla movement but student and civilian groups who – disappointed with the government's offers of political autonomy – were now backing independence.
"There is by all accounts a growing radicalization of the Papuan elite and not just in Jayapura," said Jones, from the International Crisis Group.
She called on Jakarta to give greater power to a Papuan tribal council, established as part of an autonomy deal, and negotiate with Papuans leader in a bid to lessen support for independence.
Papua was incorporated into Indonesia after a 1969 referendum which was widely criticized as a sham.