JAYAPURA (Indonesia) - THOUSANDS of Papuans rallied on Thursday to urge the provincial parliament to demand a referendum on self-determination, and reject the region's special autonomy within Indonesia.
An upper house of tribal leaders, the Papuan People's Assembly (MRP), voted in June to reject Papua's autonomy status, introduced in 2001 after the fall of the Suharto military dictatorship in Jakarta.
Witnesses said more than 2,000 Papuans in Jayapura, some of them wearing traditional outfits, were marching about 17 kilometres from the MRP's office to the provincial parliament building.
'Special autonomy has failed to protect the rights of indigenous Papuans,' protest leader Markus Haluk told AFP.
'We want to urge Papua's provincial parliament to hold a plenary meeting to declare that special autonomy is a failure and returned it back to the central government,' he said.
Mr Haluk said the Indonesian government and Papuans, who are indigenous Melanesians, needed to establish a dialogue in which the UN or a neutral country would act as mediator. -- AFP