Sydney – The Australia West Papua Association, Sydney, has asked Australia's Foreign minister Stephen Smith to raise what it says is the continuing deteriorating situation in West Papua with the Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
The association wanted the foreign minister to urge the president to control the security forces in West Papua as a way of avoiding further escalation of the situation and avoiding possible bloodshed, its secretary Joe Collins said yesterday.
The latest incidents in West Papua included the killing of a policeman and the wounding of six others in an ambush last Wednesday, he said. It followed a series of attacks in the region.
The unidentified assailants had struck in Tingginambut, the Puncak Jaya district, West Papua and "may have been instigated by third parties out to distrupt the Presidential election as the Indonesian President's talk of reform is not welcome by all members of the security forces," the secretary said.
The association warned of the deterioration in West Papua in a letter written to the foreign minister earlier this month.
Click here for the statement and letter to Australia's foreign minister Stephen Smith.