Calm returned to Papua Province yesterday after three days of tension following a deadly protest against a massive US-owned gold mine in the eastern Indonesian province.
Police have arrested 13 of more than 70 people questioned in connection with the violence -- in which four security officers were bludgeoned to death -- on charges ranging from destruction of property to assault and murder, chief detective Colonel Paulus Waterpauw said.
The killings highlighted the hatred many residents of Indonesia's easternmost province feel toward the country's soldiers and police. Human rights activists accuse authorities of planning a purge of pro-independence activists in the wake of the latest bloodshed.
Protesters say the mine, which is owned by Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc, has earned the New Orleans-based company billions of dollars, but the local firm has received little benefit. Freeport, which has acknowledged paying millions of dollars to government troops for security, also is identified with Indonesian oppression by many Papuans.
The province was incorporated into Indonesia in 1969 by former dictator Suharto after his security forces orchestrated a referendum in which only 1,025 hand-picked supporters of Indonesian rule took part. The vote is now widely regarded as a sham, and Papuans are demanding a true ballot on self-determination, akin to the one that ended Jakarta's rule in East Timor in 1999.
On Thursday, mine protesters killed three policemen and an air force officer in a rampage when gun-toting security forces fired tear gas and charged protesters with batons in Jayapura, the provincial capital. Papuans said the police shot first, injuring several people, before protesters attacked the security forces.
But by yesterday, no police were left guarding or patrolling the streets around the campus of Cendrawasih University, the location of Thursday's clash.
"People are now going to churches without fear, while shops, stalls and street vendors have returned to their normal activities," Waterpauw said.
Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when
CAUSE UNKNOWN: Weather and runway conditions were suitable for flight operations at the time of the accident, and no distress signal was sent, authorities said A cargo aircraft skidded off the runway into the sea at Hong Kong International Airport early yesterday, killing two ground crew in a patrol car, in one of the worst accidents in the airport’s 27-year history. The incident occurred at about 3:50am, when the plane is suspected to have lost control upon landing, veering off the runway and crashing through a fence, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said. The jet hit a security patrol car on the perimeter road outside the runway zone, which then fell into the water, it said in a statement. The four crew members on the plane, which
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior partner yesterday signed a coalition deal, paving the way for Sanae Takaichi to become the nation’s first female prime minister. The 11th-hour agreement with the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) came just a day before the lower house was due to vote on Takaichi’s appointment as the fifth prime minister in as many years. If she wins, she will take office the same day. “I’m very much looking forward to working with you on efforts to make Japan’s economy stronger, and to reshape Japan as a country that can be responsible for future generations,”
SEVEN-MINUTE HEIST: The masked thieves stole nine pieces of 19th-century jewelry, including a crown, which they dropped and damaged as they made their escape The hunt was on yesterday for the band of thieves who stole eight priceless royal pieces of jewelry from the Louvre Museum in the heart of Paris in broad daylight. Officials said a team of 60 investigators was working on the theory that the raid was planned and executed by an organized crime group. The heist reignited a row over a lack of security in France’s museums, with French Minister of Justice yesterday admitting to security flaws in protecting the Louvre. “What is certain is that we have failed, since people were able to park a furniture hoist in the middle of
RSS