Troops Patrol Streets in Eastern Indonesia After bloody Protest
March 17, 2006

Hundreds of troops patrolled the streets in the tense West Papuan  town of Jayapura on Friday, after a mob bludgeoned to death four security officers during a bloody protest demanding the closure of a US-owned gold mine.

The killings on Thursday underscored the deep hatred many Papuans feel toward the mine, run by Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., as well as Indonesian security forces in the region, which is home to a decades-long separatist movement.

Rock-throwing protesters went on a rampage after clashing with police who tried to break up their rally. Security forces were seen shooting in the direction of the crowd, and beating protesters with sticks.

Indonesia’s president sent top security chiefs to the remote region to probe the unrest, and hundreds of gun-toting paramilitary police stood guard near the state-run university, the site of the demonstration. The campus was largely deserted on Friday.

“Indonesia should respect the Papuans,” said one student, Robi Kubi, who was waiting at the airport as the bodies of the slain officers were flown to their hometowns. “We have huge natural resources, but why are they extracted by foreigners while the Papuans are still poor?” he added.

London-based Human Rights Watch called on authorities to determine why Thursday’s rally spiraled out of control.

The group said it appeared that police may have opened fire first on the demonstrators, wounding several of them, who then responded by attacking the officers with rocks and knives.

“Eyewitnesses say that they saw the police open fire on the crowd of unarmed demonstrators. In response the crowd attacked the riot units and beat to death four policemen, injuring at least 19 other officers,” the group’s Asia director Brad Adams said Friday.

The province of 800,000 people on the western half of New Guinea Island is off limits to foreign journalists and diplomats.

Since 2005, there has been a visible build-up of troops in the province with reports of widespread human rights abuses, including arson, and arbitrary detention.

Many local people are angry at Freeport, which they accuse of causing massive pollution in Papua’s hitherto pristine jungles by allowing large quantities of toxic waste to seep from the mine into surrounding groundwater.

They also say that very little of the mine’s massive profits have been allocated to reducing poverty in Papua, which remains one of the world’s most impoverished regions.

Critics accuse the company of working closely with Indonesia’s armed forces since dictator Suharto incorporated the former Dutch colony into Indonesia in 1969, after a vote that is now widely seen as a sham.