Australia queries Indonesia over Papua shootings

Sydney_(dpa) _ Australia on Saturday asked Indonesia to see if shootings reported in troubled Papua province were payback for Jakarta's embarrassment at the arrival in Australia of a boatload of Papuan asylum seekers.
Human rights groups in Australia claim as many as four students were shot dead Friday in Waghete in Papua and that one was a close relative of one of the 43 Papuans that arrived Friday and are now in detention in Australia's Indian Ocean territory of Christmas Island.

"We've asked our diplomatic representatives to obtain the appropriate report for us," Attorney General Philip Ruddock said.

Asked what might have caused the clash in which the shootings were reported to have taken place, Ruddock said, "You're talking about issues that might be raised in the context of asylum claims and I'm simply saying they are not matters about which it is appropriate for me to comment."

Reports from Indonesia say a high-school pupil was shot dead in Waghete and two other villagers wounded. The teenager who died, Moses Douw, is said to be a relative of one of the independence activists now on Christmas Island.

The Australian West Papua Association, a lobby group, urged Canberra to protest. "We can't have a special relationship with Indonesia that's based on covering up atrocities," association spokesman Nick Chesterfield said.

A secessionist movement has rumbled on in Papua, formerly Irian Jaya, since the territory was incorporated into Indonesia through a controversial United Nations-sponsored "act of free choice" in 1969.

Canberra has been at pains to reassure Jakarta that it does not support independence for Papua.

The reassurances followed Australia's leadership of an international force that in 1999 entered East Timor, incorporated into Indonesia in 1975, following a vote for independence in a UN-sponsored referendum.

Indonesia caved in to international pressure and gave East Timor its independence in 1999. The half-island became a sovereign nation in 2002.

Indonesia's West Timor province occupies the other half of the island. Seven Indonesians, who claim to be from West Timor, are currently in immigration detention in Australia's Indian Ocean territory of Christmas Island. They landed on Australia's west coast in November.

The arrival of the Papuans puts Canberra in a difficult position.

Accepting them as asylum-seekers would offend Jakarta because it would be tantamount to accepting their claim that they would be in fear of their lives if they were returned.

Rejecting them would cause a storm of protest from Australian human rights activists.

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