Indonesian forces exchanged fire with gunmen yesterday and killed a suspected rebel, a day after two American schoolteachers and an Indonesian were shot dead near a huge copper and gold mine run by a US corporation.
Brigadier-General I Made Pastika, police chief of Indonesia's easternmost province of Papua, said a soldier was wounded in the shootout which broke out at 8am.
Officers said thick fog in the area was hampering efforts to hunt down the gunmen who also wounded at least 10 other people, including six US citizens, in Saturday's attack near the Grasberg mine.
It was the bloodiest incident involving foreigners in almost four decades of intermittent warfare between government forces and separatist rebels in Papua.
Regional armed forces chief Major-General Mahidin Simbolon arrived yesterday in Timika, near the immense open-pit mine operated by PT Freeport Indonesia -- an affiliate of US-based Freeport-McMoRan Copper-and-Gold Inc. For many Papuans, the operation is a symbol of unwanted Indonesian rule.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, although police said rebels of the Free Papua Movement may have been behind it.
"This is serious. All the security chiefs are up here. More troops are coming," said Sergeant-Major Ahmad Ranto, a spokesman for the military base in Timika.
The military command had immediately deployed two infantry companies -- comprising about 250 men -- to search the jungles and capture the attackers, he said. These soldiers were involved in yesterday's clash.
Workers at Freeport said they were still in shock over the killings of the headmaster and school teachers from the Tembaga Pura International School.
"We are pretty devastated, especially the children at the school," said a teacher who asked not to be named for security reasons. "Basically all the staff are wiped out. We are all wiped out."
Another Freeport employee said security forces had blocked roads in the area as part of the effort, while security had been tightened. But she said activity was normal in Tembagapura, a town which serves the mine, with little tension.
She said two masses for the victims had already been held in the area, while a number of expatriates were attending another. "The masses have been to honor the dead," she said.
A police statement identified the dead as Ted Burcon and Rickey Spear, both Americans, and Bambang Riwanto, an Indonesian.
Eight of those wounded in the attack were flown to Townsville, in Australia's Queensland state.
One wounded survivor of the ambush, an Indonesian driver named Mastur, said the attack came fast.
"I didn't see what happened. It occurred so quickly," he said in the Jakarta hospital to which he was evacuated yesterday for treatment for a bullet wound. He said he heard firing but did not see who did the shooting.
Papua, located about 2,300km east of Jakarta, is Indonesia's largest province. It comprises 21 percent of the country's land mass, but is home to only 1 percent of its population.
Ever since 1963, the Free Papua Movement has waged a low-level insurgency against Indonesian occupation. Separatists claim that Papua gained independence from Dutch rule on Dec. 1, 1961.
RSS