Indon targets Australians over Papua

AAP ©

It's been revealed that Indonesia's military has targeted Australian academics, church leaders, businessmen and journalists for their supposed support of independence in Papua.

Documents and intelligence reports from the elite special forces unit Kopassus, dating from 2006 to 2009 and obtained by Fairfax newspapers, show Kopassus runs a vast network of spies and informants as part of its campaign to keep vice-like control of the region and monitors the activities of foreigners in the region and around the world.

Fairfax says the list includes ABC journalists Geoff Thompson and David Anderson, neither of whom supports independence in Papua but have reported from the region.

Greens leader Bob Brown and the senior Uniting Church pastor John Barr are also inclusions.

More than 40 US Congress members, including the chairwoman of the powerful Senate intelligence committee, Dianne Feinstein, are also branded separatist agitators. Other names include South African anti-apartheid hero Bishop Desmond Tutu and former Papua New Guinea prime minister Sir Michael Somare.

Senator Feinstein and Bishop Tutu have raised concerns about human rights in Papua, but they have never backed independence. Sir Michael spent decades actively opposing separatists.