Indonesia: October 7, 2000

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In Irian Jaya, tribesmen armed with bows and arrows, machetes, axes and knives attacked settlers from other parts of Indonesia. Police and soldiers responded and over thirty are dead, with nearly fifty wounded. Thousands of settlers fled to police and army compounds for safety. Some sixty people were arrested. The native tribesmen want to become independent, or unite with the eastern part of New Guinea, the country of Papua New Guinea. Irian Jaya  was an independent nation in 1961, when the Dutch allowed self rule. But Indonesia occupied the region in 1963 and paid off local chiefs to accept the situation. In the Maluku islands, one civilian was killed when Christians and Moslems clashed.