Upping the Heat

Shortly after the fall of Indonesia's authoritarian Suharto government in 1998, the country's remote, resource-rich Papua province seemed on the verge of gaining autonomy from Jakarta. But two ominous developments last week indicate that the resurgent Indonesian military may be about to bring the boot down hard on Papua's separatists, just as it did earlier this year in Aceh province. First came the appointment of Timbul Silaen as Papua's new police chief—the same job he held in Dili during East Timor's 1999 bloody independence drive. Silaen is still wanted by Dili prosecutors for his alleged connections to militia that killed more...

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