By Angela Marie Watkins
Impunity Watch Reporter, Oceania

JAKARTA, Indonesia – The border between Indonesia and Papua New Guinea is to remain closed following last month’s shootings in Papua’s Freeport area.

Indonesia’s military headquarters said that both countries have agreed to close the border following various shootings in the Freeport area and to anticipate further interference.

“The closing is to anticipate the incidents’ impact, including possible foreign interests toward the incidents,” military spokesperson Air Vice-Marshall Sagom Tamboen said.

The border closing was first adopted during Indonesia’s presidential election on July 8, 2009 in response to early incidents and in anticipation of further unrest.

Violence in Freeport began this summer when an employees’ bus at the company’s security post at mile 53 was set fire, killing Drew Nicholas Grant from Australia.

The following day, a security guard Markus Rante Allo was killed by gunfire at mile 51. The latest incident was July 13 when the body of internal affairs police officer Vice Brigadier Marson Fredy Pettipelohi, of Papua’s regional police, was found with severe wounds in his neck at mile 64.

Sagom said that all three incidents are being investigated by both the police and the military.

For more information, please see:
Radio New Zealand – PNG/Indonesia border remains closed – 04 August 2009

China View –  Indonesia, Papua New Guinea agree to keep border closed – 04 August 2009