A demonstration in Jayapura which was organised by the Students Anti-Violence Alliance (AMAK) under its leader Zacharias Horoto, included among its demands the call for three of Papua's leading personalities to be arrested: Tom Beanal, chairman of the Papuan Presidium Caouncil (PDP), Forkorus Yaboisembut, chairman of the Papuan Traditional Council (DAP) and Thaha al Hamid, secretary-general of the Papuan Presidium Council (PDP).

The demonstration which, according to Cepos, was attended by around thirty people, said that these three people were responsible for all the actions undertaken by the youth of Papuan and they are the ones who should face charges.

Commenting on these demands, Forkorus said that while people were entitled to raise their voices and make demands, students should be able to act rationally and not make all manner of demands. Everything he himself had done can be fully justified as conforming with basic traditions, democracy and human rights. Everything had been done in accordance with the human rights of the Papuan people and it was not a question of acting on the basis of a sense of authority. The students, he said, need to explain scientifically why they are demanding the arrests of these leading figures.

He explained that he himself and other leaders had been democratically elected by their organisations and had never incited anyone to do anything but have always explained the initiatives which they have taken.

The students leaders involved in the demonstration had only recently visited him at his home to share their thoughts with him about the situation in West Papua, but what they were now doing was in contrast to these discussions. He wondered whether they had been put up to it by certain elements in society.

During the demonstration, the demonstators carried two coffins representing the two assassinated Papuan leaders, Theys Eluay and Arnold Ap, which were draped in black cloth which they had intended to burn, as a mark of the destruction of human rights in Papua, but were prevented from doing so by the police.

A declaraion read out on behalf of the demonstrators drew attention to the fraudulent Act of Free Choice in 1969, and called for a referendum and for the release of Buchtar Tabuni and said that Papua was not yet a zone of peace partly because the influx of migrants from Indonesia and the increasing number of military.

[Abridged translation by TAPOL.]