Don't Mention West Papua When Indonesia Is In PNG

By Ilya Gridneff, Papua New Guinea Correspondent

PORT MORESBY, March 11 AAP - The contentious West Papuan issue will not be formally discussed between Papua New Guinea and Indonesia during president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono two-day visit.

West Papua's plight has always been a thorny political issue for the two countries as PNG has ethnic connections to the two million melanesians who for the past 40 years have lived in Indonesia's poorest province.

After a successful Australian tour Dr Yudhoyono arrived in PNG on Thursday afternoon and met with Prime Minister Michael Somare.

PNG and Indonesia share a 750km vertical border and are expected to discuss climate change, the Coral Triangle Initiative and then sign agreements on defence co-operation and taxation.

A source in the PNG prime minister's office told AAP West Papua would not be formally discussed.

"It's not on the agenda," the source said.

But Port Moresby governor Powes Parkop is confident a petition calling for great Papuan autonomy will make it to Dr Yudhoyono.

Mr Parkop told AAP he has given PNG Foreign Affairs Minister Sam Abal the protest petition that calls for better treatment of Papuan people.

"Minister Abal has agreed to raise it with the president or someone in the delegation," he said.

The West Papuan issue was not broached during Dr Yudhoyono's visit to Australia despite widespread allegations of human rights abuse in the province.

West Papuan supporters are not confident Dr Yudhoyono, now in his second term, will fulfil his broken first-term election promise to resolve the West Papuan issue.

Indonesia took formal control of the Dutch colony in a widely criticised 1969 UN-sponsored vote by 1022 hand-picked Papuan village elders.

Since then Indonesia has neutralised the Papuans' stubborn campaign for self-rule of a province where the traditional landowners have become an ethnic minority.

The Papuan cause is Indonesia's biggest unresolved territorial dispute since East Timor gained independence in 1999 and Aceh's conflict was resolved in 2005.