Indonesian prosecutors the remote province of Irian Jaya have extended the detention of native Papuan independence leader Theys Eluay and four colleagues by another 40 days, a lawyer for Eluay said Tuesday.
Eluay and fellow Papua Presidium members Thaha Al Hamid, Don Flassy and John Mambor were arrested on subversion charges on the eve of the December 1 anniversary of an unrecognized declaration of independence by native Papuans.
A fifth Presidium member, Reverend Herman Awom, was arrested on the same charges on December 4.
"The state attorney has issued a warrant ordering Theys' detention to be extended until January 27," Anum Siregar, a member of the defence team for the five jailed independence figures, told AFP.
The extensions fly in the face of appeals from both President Abdurrahman Wahid and Irian Jaya Governor Jaap Salossa for an early release for the five ahead of Christmas and the New Year.
Siregar said the state attorney had also directed police to question the detainees again, as the results of their original interrogations were "incomplete."
The Papua Presidium has been spearheading demands for independence this year in Indonesia's easternmost province, known locally as West Papua.
Under Indonesian law police are meant to hand detainees over to prosecutors after 20 days, unless circumstances demand an extension.
Police had completed questioning Eluay and his colleagues, and they should have been released on December 18 and 19. Awom, a charismatic preacher, had been due out on Christmas Eve.
Police had handed over dossiers on the five subversion cases to prosecutors, Siregar said, but the prosecutors sent the dossiers back demanding a more thorough investigation by police.
"Several results were deemed incomplete for a range of reasons, among them a lack of witness accounts," Siregar said by phone from Jayapura.
"The state attorney also raised questions about the one billion rupiah donated by Wahid for the Papua Congress which Theys and his friends organized in June."
The June Congress concluded by demanding Jakarta recognize that West Papua had been independent since 1961.
Siregar said Eluay and his colleagues, all of them Christian, were "ready to celebrate Christmas and New Year in jail."
However, she remained optimistic that a last minute move could see them freed before the festive season.
The arrests of the five were part of a new crackdown by Jakarta on the Papuan separatist movement, after some 12 months of a pro-dialogue, tolerant approach by Wahid.
Rights activists say the detained men were moderate members of the pro-independence movement, promoting non-violence, and their detention would only fuel more radical elements in Irian Jaya.
Armed Papuans have carried out several violent attacks on security posts and migrant settlers in Irian Jaya in the wake of the detentions.
The former Dutch colony had been promised independence by its departing colonizers in the early 1960s, but Indonesian troops entered on the heels of the Dutch, and by 1969 Jakarta's sovereignty over the resource-rich land had been formalized through a small UN-held vote, which Papuans say was flawed and unrepresentative -- JAKARTA (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
