Jayapura – The United Nations has declared 21 September as an International Day for Peace. The religious leaders in Papua have responded to this appeal by the UN. On Saturday night all the leaders of the main religions in Papua – Christian, Islam, Buddha and Hindu – held a "prayer march" in Jayapura, the capital of Papua.

Liza Power – It's seven in the morning at Wamena's Trendy Hotel. The mosquitoes have retired after a night of feasting on my toes and ears, which means it's time to stumble from room 3, check my collection of flea bites and watch the old Dani man by the door, who wears a penis gourd that reaches to his chin, floss his teeth with a two-metre arrow.

Canberra – Executive Director of the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), Dr. Mike Nahan, disclosed here on Friday that a number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Australia have given their support to separatism in Indonesia, particularly in "West Papua".

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, Jakarta – Papuan people urged on Friday that the government immediately reinstate the plan for two new provinces on the island, whose establishment was approved in 1999 to boost development and quench calls for independence there.

[A prominent Australian scientist, who spent many years doing research in Papua and in neighbouring Papua New Guinea, says he believes the killings last month at the US-owned copper and gold mine, Freeport, will be a turning point in already strained relations between the United States and the Indonesian military.

Jakarta – Trikora Military Commander Maj. Gen. Mahidin Simbolon hinted on Tuesday that the Saturday attack on soldier Pvt. Edi Susanto in Timika-Tembagapura, Irian Jaya, might have involved staff of PT Freeport Indonesia.

John Martinkus – In April, 1000 pro-independence demonstrators met Ralph Boyce when the United States ambassador to Indonesia arrived in Jayapura, the West Papuan capital. They were mostly highlanders dressed in feathered head-dresses; some sported the traditional penis gourds.

Tim Dodd, Jakarta – Security problems are worsening at the giant Freeport copper and gold mine in Indonesia's Papua province after soldiers guarding the facility discovered a bomb under a bridge on the mine's only access road on Saturday.

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1828: Dutch claim natives of western half of New Guinea as subjects of Netherlands' king.

1949: Dutch cede Dutch East Indies to Indonesian Republic, but retain West Papua. No, it's already ours, says Indonesia.

1950s: Anti-Dutch sentiment in Indonesia drives Dutch people out.

Don Greenlees, Jakarta – The letter came to American-owned Freeport McMoRan Copper and Gold Inc and the Indonesian Government a few days after three of the miner's employees were gunned down at its operations in a remote and mountainous corner of Papua.

Jakarta – Seven Indonesian soldiers will soon face a court martial for suspected involvement in last year's murder of a Papuan independence leader, a report said Tuesday.

Matthew Moore, Jakarta – Gunmen have fired at the car of police investigating the murder of three teachers at an international school in the Indonesian province of Papua as evidence mounts of a campaign of intimidation aimed at thwarting the police inquiry.

Matthew Moore, Jakarta – Papua's police chief has cast serious doubt on the Indonesian military's claim that separatists were responsible for last month's shooting of 14 people at a remote US mine.

Alan Sipress and Ellen Nakashima, Jakarta – The body of a key suspect in the killing of two Americans and an Indonesian in the eastern province of Papua has been identified by his family as an informant for the Indonesian military's special forces, according to a human rights group helping in the police investigation.

R.K. Nugroho, Jayapura – Police in Papua have so far questioned 21 Army soldiers who were on duty during the shooting at giant copper and gold mining company PT Freeport Indonesia compound in Timika on August 31, 2002 but have said the investigation remained inconclusive with no one yet held responsible for the incident.

Matthew Moore, Jakarta – Gunmen shot and wounded an Indonesian soldier yesterday in almost the same place that a fortnight ago gunmen killed three employees of a giant US mine in West Papua.

Matthew Moore – The sign at the village gate says Kadun Jaya, but everyone calls it Kilo Sepuluh, or Ten K, because it is 10 kilometres out of town. The town is Timika, deep in the heart of Indonesian Papua and home to the best golf course, airstrip and hotel in the province, all built on the back of the world's richest gold mine, known as Freeport.

Armed men in military uniforms were seen at the place where gunmen shot dead two Americans and an Indonesian teacher near the Freeport gold mine in Papua province, a report said Friday.

Matthew Moore, Jakarta – Violent incidents such as the shooting of 14 people at a mine in the Indonesian province of Papua last month are likely to continue unless the Indonesian military's involvement in the area's resource projects is scaled right back, a report warns.

John Garnaut – A Sydney University professor has described as "outrageous" claims by Indonesia's Security Minister, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, that the university could be linked to the murders two weeks ago of two Americans and one Indonesian on a road near the Freeport mine in Indonesia's Papua province.

Catharine Munro, Jakarta – The Indonesian Government has ordered an investigation into links between a fatal ambush on international schoolteachers near a mine in Papua and a trip to Australia by a group of Papuans at the time of the attack.

Norman Brewer, Sydney – Reconciliation and peaceful dialogue among West Papuans was the theme of the workshop of the West Papua Project, held at Sydney University on September 2-3.

James Balowski – On August 31, a band of unidentified assailants ambushed a group of mine workers in Indonesia's eastern-most province of West Papua, leaving three dead and 11 injured.

Indonesian officials immediately blamed the Free Papua Movement (OPM), however others have accused the Indonesian security forces of involvement in the attack.

Alan Sipress and Ellen Nakashima, Jakarta – Indonesian police are investigating whether soldiers were behind the killing of two Americans and one Indonesian near the Freeport-McMoRan gold and copper mine in the eastern province of Papua, the regional police chief said today.

[The most senior Indonesian diplomat in Australia has warned that a war on Iraq will divide Indonesia – Australia's most important and populous neighbour. Imron Cotan, the deputy chief at the Indonesian embassy in Canberra, says Indonesia wants United Nations backing for a war on Iraq.

A separatist leader in Indonesia's Papua province has accused the military of mounting an attack which killed two Americans and one Indonesian near the huge Freeport mine.

The army has blamed followers of Kelly Kwalik, a local leader of the disorganized and poorly armed Free Papua Movement (OPM) separatist army for the attack on August 31.

Matthew Moore – Glaciers appear to hang from the sky above Tembagapura, an improbable town squeezed into a valley perched nearly two kilometres above a lush Papuan rain forest. It's a crazy place to build.

R.K. Nugroho, Jayapura – Four United States security officials, allegedly including an FBI agent, are visiting Papua to help look into last week's ambush that killed two Americans and one Indonesian as Indonesian troops ceased their pursuit of suspected attackers.

Matthew Moore, Timika – Indonesia's national police force chief has promised to investigate allegations of military involvement in Saturday's fatal attack on a group of mainly American teachers working at the remote Freeport gold mine. Three people died in the attack and 11 were wounded.

Damien Kingsbury – Last weekend's ambush of two buses near the giant Freeport copper and gold mine in the eastern Indonesian province of West Papua has highlighted yet again the problems that underscore relations between Jakarta and the deeply troubled province.

The question to be asked about the bloody ambush in the Indonesian province of Papua of employees of the giant US-owned Freeport mine is who stands to gain. The Indonesian military has been quick to blame separatist guerillas.

[Last weekend's killing of three school teachers in Papua highlights the complex relationship between the Freeport mining company, the Indonesian military, and local Papuan villagers. P.T. Freeport Indonesia is a subsidiary of the US corporation Freeport McMoRan and operates a giant copper and gold mine in the Grasberg mountains in Papua.

Kurniawan Hari, Jakarta – Three days after a group of armed men killed two American school teachers and an Indonesian in an ambush at a location that is normally tightly controlled by police and soldiers in Papua, the police are as yet in the dark as to who the perpetrators were.

[The security chief for the Freeport mine has said he agrees with assessments by the Indonesian military, that the local independence group, the Free Papua Movement, is probably to blame. He has also linked the attack to the America's so-called War on Terror.]

Transcript:

Tim Dodd – You didn't read about it at the time because no announcement was made by Freeport-McMoRan, the US company that controls the Freeport copper and gold mine in the Indonesian province of Papua.

But in the early hours of May 25 the company's local headquarters near the mine site, in the company town of Kuala Kencana, was attacked by an armed group of Papuans.

Matthew Moore and Greg Roberts in Timika and Townsville – West Papuans yesterday accused Indonesian security forces of involvement in an ambush of mine workers that left three people dead and 11 injured.

On the streets near the giant American Freeport gold and copper mine, Papuan locals claimed security forces were involved in a "set-up".

Jakarta (agencies) – Indonesia's army chief yesterday called on the international media not to speculate on who was responsible for the fatal ambush of American schoolteachers near the Freeport mine in Papua at the weekend.

"If there is foreign media which is unclear, please tell the media not to speculate," General Ryamizard Ryacudu told El Shinta radio.

The shocking murder of three employees of the giant US-owned Freeport mine in West Papua on the weekend underscores the instability of our neighbourhood.

The portents are ominous. Indonesian security forces have begun a 60-day campaign to shut down the political wing of the Papuan independence movement.

Dan Murphy, Jakarta – Indonesian soldiers were searching the fog-shrouded mountains Monday near the world's richest gold and copper mine for the killers of two American school teachers and one Indonesian.

Achmad Sukarsono and Jerry Norton, Jakarta – Indonesian troops fanned out through thick jungle in Papua province on Monday in search of an armed band that killed three people in the bloodiest clash involving foreigners since a long-simmering rebellion began.

[Violence has escalated to Australia's north, in the Indonesian province of Papua, formerly known as Irian Jaya. Over the weekend two American teachers and one Indonesian were shot dead and more than ten others were injured, in an ambush near the giant Freeport gold and copper mine.

Sydney – Papuan rights and independence activists said on Monday they believed the Indonesian military could be to blame for a weekend attack that killed three people, including two Americans, near the world's biggest gold and copper mine.

[The Indonesian province of Papua is notoriously a black hole for information, and after the weekend's shocking attack on employees of the giant Freeport Mine, few things are clear except that three people are dead.]

Transcript:

[Tensions between Jakarta and Papua's independence movement have escalated following the weekend attack near the giant Freeport gold mine in Papua. Three people, including two Americans and an Indonesian, were killed when unidentified gunmen ambushed a convoy of cars.

Denise Leith – Kelly Kwalik of the OPM has denied that the nationalist group is responsible for the killing and wounding of Freeport employees on the company road from Tembagapura on Saturday.

In a statement issued today by Messrs Willy Mandowen, Victor Kaisiepo and Clemens Runawery on behalf of the people of West Papua, the Papua Council Presidium and its interim Chairman, Mr. Tom Beanal, and Mr.

While civil society groups have placed their hopes in creating a zone of peace in West Papua, thousands of members of Laskar Jihad have flooded into the province in the past year, amid protests from West Papuans that this could lead to inter-religious conflict.

Mystery has shrouded the death in September 2001 of Willem Onde, a local OPM commander in Merauke, together with a colleague. Investigations conducted this year by the Catholic Diocese in Merauke point to the involvement of Kopassus in his murder, just two months before Theys Eluay, the pro-independence leader was put to death by Kopassus officers.

Marni Cordell – It's cold on the first morning of the Yumi Wantaim gathering, and we – an eclectic mix of faces, ages and colours – are huddled under a large white marquee in Pipemaker's Park in outer Melbourne. Outside, under a drizzle of rain, a fire pit is being prepared to cook sweet potato and a pig, killed for the occasion.

The murder of two Americans and an Indonesian by unidentified gunmen on Saturday near PT Freeport Indonesia's huge copper and gold mine is certain to reinforce attention on the company's "environmental vandalism" and alleged complicity in human rights abuses.