Ambush Survivor Fights To Uncover The Truth

Six months on, the truth behind a fatal attack on foreigners in Indonesia is elusive, writes Marian Wilkinson in Washington.

Despite the 70 pieces of shrapnel lodged in her back, Patsy Spier is summoning the courage to campaign for answers about the military-style assault that almost took her life. But her strength fails her when she is asked about the terrible day last August on the road to the Freeport mine near Timika in the Indonesian province of Papua.

Tears fill her eyes as she remembers gunmen firing over and over into her vehicle as she cowered inside. It was a 45-minute shooting episode that left her wounded and bleeding on the back seat and her colleague dead on top of her. Just ahead on the road, in a separate vehicle, her husband and a fellow teacher also lay dead, both killed by bullets to the head.

Nearly six months after the Timika attacks that killed three people and injured 11 - most of them Americans - the White House, the State Department and the FBI have not been able to give Ms Spier and the other victims a good explanation for what happened.

The first Indonesian police report on the incident, written in September, points to the involvement of the local Indonesian military, the TNI. Privately, State Department sources confirm this. But the TNI is still denying culpability.

Now Ms Spier wants the Howard Government to hand over any intelligence Australia has on the incident, hoping it may help uncover the truth. The US media have reported that Australia intercepted conversations between Indonesian military commanders after the attack that implicated the TNI.

But this week The Washington Post was forced to apologise for one controversial report it carried claiming Western intelligence agencies had information that Indonesia's top general, Endriartono Sutarto, discussed the ambush before it occurred.

Ms Spier went to the Australian embassy in Washington this week to try to clarify these murky and conflicting claims about this intelligence information. Australian sources familiar with the case say there is no conclusive intelligence about the attack and any intercepted intelligence would automatically be given to the US.

But there are serious indications that the local TNI was involved and its superiors in Jakarta must know that.

Ms Spier pushes no theories on the attack that took her husband's life. She avoids requests for media interviews and public comments, for fear of undermining the delicate FBI investigation that is continuing. But sitting in her no-frills hotel near Capitol Hill, Ms Spier did want to record her deep gratitude to the doctors and nurses at the Townsville hospital who treated her and the other Freeport victims when they were first flown out of Papua.

"I would not be doing as well as I am without them," she says. "I can't tell you how great they were. The nurses would even come in their days off to see how we were all going."

The victims were all attached to the international school contracted to the American Freeport mining company in Papua. The school's principal, Ted Burgon, died next to Ms Spier's husband, Rick. The other survivors of the attack, some badly disabled, do not have the psychological or emotional strength to press their cases in the corridors of power. Despite deep scars on her body and her
psyche, Ms Spier is reaching into the reserves of her courage to lobby in Washington. "I can't let this happen to someone else," she says.

And her efforts, helped by Mr Burgon's two sons, are causing major ructions in the capital. The case has become the biggest impediment to any resumption of military aid between Indonesia and the US, including counter-terrorism aid. Given Australia's desire to see that aid reinstated, the Timika attacks are a problem for the Howard Government as well.

To the surprise of the State Department, the three relatives managed to persuade several prominent US senators to try to legally block training funds for the Indonesian military. The limited funds were approved by the White House in the wake of September 11.

In January, Senator Russ Feingold introduced an amendment to withhold some of the funds until there was real progress on the Freeport investigation. Although he failed in this bid, several senators made it clear they wanted much more done in the Freeport investigation.

Republican senator Wayne Allard, from Ms Spier's home state of Colorado, wrote to President George Bush urging tougher action. "If the Indonesian Government fails to act, severe diplomatic actions, including the suspension of IMET (International Military Education and Training) funding for Indonesia should be considered," he wrote.

The White House has said no training funds would be spent until there is a credible result in the Timika investigation. After renewed US pressure, FBI agents made another visit to Indonesia in late January. They are now writing a new report, but whether they have enough evidence to charge individual TNI officers is still unclear.

There are several theories about why the attack took place, but one of the most credible points to an extortion attempt against the US Freeport mining company by local TNI officers, possibly from Kostrad, the Army Strategic Reserve Command. The local military commanders initially tried to blame the Papuan rebel group, the OPM, for the attack and even offered the corpse of an alleged OPM assailant as proof. But the Indonesian police investigation dismissed this.

Indeed, the initial police report on the attack concluded: "There is a strong possibility that the (Timika) case was perpetrated by the members of the Indonesian National Army Force, however, it still needs to be investigated further."

The police report, obtained by The Age, also shows that Indonesian police investigators were threatened, evidence appeared to be planted and the crime scene was interfered with. Also, the report noted that members of the Indonesian army unit at Freeport had their "perks" reduced over stealing from the mine and were upset with the company.

But the investigation was then handed over to the military who did their own inquiries. And in January, army chief General Sutarto was quoted in the Jakarta Post saying, "we have found no evidence of military involvement" in the shootings.

The Freeport-McMoRan mining company has said nothing about several reports that the company was attempting to cut back on the generosity of its security contract with the local TNI who, by law, protect the mine.

There is little doubt that the attack was not aimed specifically at the teachers, who were in Freeport vehicles. Indeed, not long after the attack, the company vice-president and his wife drove past the scene of carnage. They, just as easily, could have been the victims.

PROFILE PAPUA

TOTAL POPULATION 2.5 million.

INDIGENOUS POPULATION 1.5 million.

MIGRANTS BORN IN OTHER PARTS OF INDONESIA 850,000.

LANGUAGE Bahasa Indonesian, in addition to 253 tribal languages.

AREA

421,918 square kilometres. Comprises 21 per cent of Indonesia's total land mass, but is home to only 1 per cent of its population.

GOVERNMENT

One of 26 provinces of Indonesia. Local legislature with native Papuan upper house. This upper house has limited real power - it cannot propose legislation and has limited veto rights. Effective lawmaking power is retained in Jakarta, where Indonesia's parliament retains control over revenue collection and distribution, the military and the police.

* In 1969, village councils in the then Irian Jaya, under pressure from Opsus special forces in the region, voted in favor of joining Indonesia. 

On September 17 Irian Jaya was formally made a province of Indonesia.