Wahid Loses Bid to Free 5 Rebels in Indonesia

Government officials and security chiefs have rejected Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid’s request to release five separatist leaders, news reports said Saturday.

The refusal is a blow for Wahid, who has faced increasing criticism from human rights groups and foreign governments over a crackdown on separatists in Indonesia’s restive provinces.

Wahid had called Friday for the release of Theys Eluay, who heads the separatist Papuan Presidium Council, and four other leaders of the independence movement in the eastern province of Irian Jaya. But at a meeting later in the day, Indonesia’s top security minister, Gen. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, said the separatists could not be freed because they were still under investigation, the Jakarta Post reported.

“The national police chief told the meeting the arrest had been made in order to find concrete evidence of violations of the law,” the newspaper quoted Yudhoyono as saying.

The five men, detained before a nonviolent pro-independence rally late last month, are accused of subversion and face up to 20 years in prison if convicted. They have not been formally charged, but police handed files on the suspects to prosecutors Saturday, indicating that the investigations were complete.

Meanwhile, the violence in Irian Jaya continued Saturday.

Two loggers were killed when their camp was raided by a mob armed with machetes, spears and arrows, military officials said. An army spokesman said separatists were suspected in the attack near the border with New Guinea, about 20 miles from the provincial capital, Jayapura.

Separatists in Irian Jaya, which covers the western half of New Guinea, have been struggling for independence from Indonesia since the government took control of the former Dutch colony in 1963.

Human rights activists in Irian Jaya allege that dozens of detainees have been tortured by police in Jayapura. Police deny the claim.

On Saturday, international human rights groups condemned what they said were execution-style killings of aid workers by Indonesian security forces in Aceh, another of Indonesia’s troubled provinces.

Sulaiman Abdullah, a spokesman for Indonesia’s foreign office, denied the charge.