Indonesia's national police force chief has promised to investigate allegations of military involvement in Saturday's fatal attack on a group of mainly American teachers working at the remote Freeport gold mine.
Three people died in the attack and 11 were wounded.
General Da'i Bachtiar flew from Jakarta yesterday to inspect the ambush site in the Indonesian province of Papua before telling a news conference he would include the military in his investigations into the attack.
He said he had an open mind on who was responsible and what motives might have prompted the attack.
"We are open to all alternatives, including the military . . . all these questions will be answered by the evidence," he said.
His comments are likely to anger the Indonesian army, which has consistently blamed a small group of separatist rebels for the first such attack against foreigners. The army killed one Papuan and one soldier was shot in the leg in a clash near the ambush site on Sunday.
Major-General Mahidin Simbolon, the provincial army commander, has repeatedly accused a splinter group of the Free Papua Movement for the attack, while rejecting suggestions of direct or indirect military involvement.
General Bachtiar said he believed the police would find out who was behind the killings by conducting a "scientific criminal investigation" into the crime, which he believed would dispel widespread doubts in the community.
However, many Papuans are sceptical that police have the ability to reveal any military involvement in the affair and believe the army gets increased resources from the mine owners and from Jakarta if there are serious disturbances.
The acting head of the pro-independence Papuan Presidium Council, Thom Beanal, said yesterday he would be pleased if the investigation uncovered the truth but he had yet to be convinced it would.
While this is the first such attack against Westerners, there has been an increase in attacks over the past nine months on the Freeport-McMoran company that owns the mine.
In December last year, two Indonesian mine employees were shot and in May, windows were smashed at the company's head office in the lowlands near Timika and petrol was poured on the carpet in an unsuccessful attempt to burn the building.
No one has been arrested for these crimes.
Provincial police chief Irjen Pastika said local police were working on the theory that members of several tribes were staging attacks because they do not get a direct share of mine revenue.
He said the company had a financial agreement to pay traditional landowners in the highland regions, the Amungme and Kamoro tribes, but not with other tribes now in the area such as the Dani and Moni.
He said these other tribes were trying to set up their own foundation to get a share of any moneys from the mine. "Of course, they have some justification," the provincial police chief said.
While he stressed this was only a theory, he said it remained his best lead so far and he was trying to confirm if the Papuan killed by the army on Sunday was a member of the Moni tribe.
[FUBlob][PI9017]Neither the US State Department nor Freeport's headquarters in New Orleans would speculate on who was responsible for the attack. Their position remains they are unaware of the identity of the perpetrators or their motives.with Marian Wilkinson
This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/09/04/1031115884250.html