Fed: Campaigners fear escalating violence after Kwalik death

AAP General News (Australia)
12-16-2009
Fed: Campaigners fear escalating violence after Kwalik death

SYDNEY, Dec 16 AAP - The death of one of the most active regional commanders in Papua's
separatist guerrilla movement could be used as an excuse for a military crackdown, Sydney-based
campaigners fear.

Kelly Kwalik, who is said to have commanded insurgencies aimed at disrupting Indonesian
rule since 1964 under the banner of the Free Papua Movement (OPM), was shot by police
and died later on Wednesday in hospital, according to reports.

Papua province police spokesman Agus Rianto said Kwalik was shot after he threatened
to open fire on officers during an early morning raid on a house in Timika, on the southern
coast.

The Sydney-based Australia West Papua Association (AWPA) said it now feared escalating
violence in the region.

"The Australia West Papua Association (Sydney) is shocked to hear news of the death
of OPM leader Kelly Kwalik who was shot by Indonesian police near Timika in the early
hours of this morning," the association said in a statement.

"Reports coming from West Papua have stated that the local market has been burned and
people are also calling for the return of his body.

"AWPA is concerned that with the increasing tension in the Timika region the security
forces may use such outpourings of grief and loss by local people as an excuse to crack
down and conduct military operations in the area."

The association called on the international community to send representatives to the region.

Earlier, Papua province police spokesman Agus Rianto told the French newsagency AFP
that the dead man had yet to be formally identified.

"We had to shoot him as he tried to shoot the police with a kind of revolver and evade
arrest," AFP quoted Rianto as saying.

"He was shot in the left leg and brought to hospital. He died at the hospital."

Kwalik is accused of multiple kidnappings and attacks on employees of US miner Freeport McMoran.

The OPM has waged a low-level insurgency against Indonesian rule since 1964, a year
after the Netherlands ceded sovereignty of the resource-rich, ethnically Melanesian region
to Indonesia.

Kwalik, aged in his 60s, has been commanding the insurgency around the towns of Mimika
and Timika since 1977.

The area includes Freeport's giant Grasberg mine, which sits on one of the biggest
gold and copper reserves in the world and provides the Indonesian government with its
largest single source of tax revenue.

The road linking Timika to the mine in the rugged highlands to the north has been
the scene of a string of mysterious ambushes over the past six months.

Australian mine technician Drew Grant was killed in a July 11 attack, while a Freeport
security guard and a policeman were killed the following day.

AAP/AFP mdg/it/cdh

KEYWORD: INDON KWALIK UPDATE

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