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Sydney Morning Herald Tuesday, July
13, 1999
An independent investigation has confirmed a Herald
report that Indonesian soldiers massacred Irian Jaya demonstrators and
dumped others at sea on the island of Biak last year.
The investigation team found at least eight people were shot and 37 others
hurt when troops opened fire on unarmed people after they had raised the
West Papua independence flag and that 32 bodies recovered at sea were also
victims of military atrocities.
The Herald reported in November that witnesses saw Irianese, many of them
women and children, taken out to sea in a Indonesian Navy ship and dumped
overboard.
But the Indonesian armed forces strongly denied the claims, saying the
bodies were those of victims of the tsunami that struck the Papua New Guinea
coast 900 kilometres away.
The investigation team, appointed by three churches and the Institute for
Human Rights Studies and Advocacy, called for an official investigation of
human rights violations in Irian Jaya.
The institute's executive director, Mr Yohanes Bonay, said the military's
explanation for the washed up bodies was nonsense.
"We all know that the tsunami occurred on July 17, 1998, eight days after
the bodies were found," he said. "Besides, do Papua New Guineans wear Golkar
or Indonesian group T-shirts?"
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