Hello,
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0201/08/world/world8.html
Tuesday, January 8, 2002
The Sydney Morning Herald
Irian Jaya province officially renamed Papua
Indonesia's easternmost province of Irian Jaya was officially renamed Papua
yesterday as part of an autonomy package aimed at reducing support for
independence.
A sign reading "The Gubernatorial Office of Papua Province" was unveiled by
Governor Yacobus Salossa in a ceremony attended by military and civilian
officials, the official Antara news agency said.
In his address, Salossa urged the public to use the name Papua from now on.
The autonomy law took effect in Papua, on the western half of New Guinea
island, on January 1.
Jakarta passed the law last year in an effort to appease widespread
agitation for independence after almost four decades of harsh
military-enforced rule.
Besides the name change, new laws allow Papua to keep up to 80 per cent of
revenues from its rich natural resources and permit the adoption of a
provincial flag in addition to the national flag.
Independence demands have been fanned by Jakarta's perceived exploitation of
Papua's resources and decades of abuses by the security forces, in the form
of arbitrary killings, detention and torture.
Pro-independence leader Theys Hiyo Eluay was murdered in November after
leaving a military-hosted ceremony.
In an interview with AFP last week, Governor Salossa said that "all the data
points to the involvement of Kopassus (the army's special forces)" in
Eluay's murder.
The Dutch ceded control of what is now Indonesia in 1949 but retained the
territory now known as Papua. In 1963, under pressure from Washington, they
handed Papua over to Indonesia.
Jakarta's sovereignty was affirmed in a UN-sponsored plebiscite in 1969
which pro-independence advocates describe as rigged.
Each year on December 1 independence sympathisers commemorate an
unrecognised 1961 declaration of independence.
--
Best Regards Reply To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Tony Gamble
University of Minnesota
Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology
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