JAKARTA: Indonesian authorities are stepping up security in Papua ahead of Dec. 1, which separatists in the restive easternmost region mark as independence day, local police and military said on Sunday.
Security measures have been particularly tight for the past few months as incidents of racial abuse against the province’s Melanesian population triggered deadly unrest and renewed calls for a sovereign Papua in August.
The region has also seen a spike in shootings targeting the military and police, after a massacre on construction workers for a government-sponsored highway project in early December last year, for which a separatist group claimed responsibility.
Papua Police chief Insp. Gen. Paulus Waterpauw said on Sunday that patrols were being intensified in the regencies of Puncak Jaya, Lanny Jaya, Intan Jaya and Mimika, which are known as separatist strongholds.
On Thursday, a separatist leader wanted for a string of previous attacks was arrested in the town of Timika in Mimika. Waterpauw said the suspect had revealed that “actions” were planned around Dec. 1. The suspect in Timika, Waterpauw said, was heading to the neighboring town of Tembagapura to join other separatist groups hailing from Intan Jaya.
Circulars intercepted by police from the groups linked to the separatist Free Papua Movement (OPM) revealed that rebels were attempting to solicit funding from local residents for their alleged planned acts, Waterpauw said.
Local military spokesman Col. Eko Daryanto said that 6,000 police and military personnel were drafted in when unrest between August and September led to the deaths of more than 30 people in Wamena city and Deiyai regency.
Their presence adds to the already heavy militarization of the region.
Some of the personnel are on alert near the mountainous jungle-clad strongholds of separatist groups, he said.
“We’re preventing residents from nearing conflict-prone areas and calling on them not to be provoked by misleading issues,” Daryanto said, adding patrols were also intensified in the provincial capital of Jayapura, where pro-independence rallies are expected.
Papuans staged rallies in the region and other parts of Indonesia on Dec. 1 last year, raising the Morning Star flag, an outlawed symbol of Papuan independence.
Papua, the western part of the island of New Guinea, declared itself independent from Dutch colonial rule on Dec. 1, 1961. But Indonesia officially took over the region in 1969 after a UN-backed ballot widely seen as a sham.
Jakarta keeps a tight grip on the resource-rich region, which remains the country’s poorest and least developed.
A sporadic low-level revolt has simmered for decades. Verifying security developments is difficult as foreign journalists are barred from entering the province.
