Aust to keep raising rights with Indonesia

29 Aug 2012, 1:01 pm   -   Source: AAP

Foreign Minister Bob Carr says Australia will keep discussing human rights with Indonesia and call for an inquiry into the death of a West Papuan leader.

Australia has made calls for Indonesians to open an inquiry into the death of a West Papuan separatist leader in June.

The Australian embassy in Jakarta has raised the issue, while Prime Minister Julia Gillard has discussed human rights in the provinces of Papua and West Papua with the Indonesian president, as Foreign Minister Bob Carr has done with his counterpart.

ABC television reported on Tuesday that separatist leader Mako Tabuni was killed by Detachment 88, a counter-terrorism police unit trained by Australian forces.

Senator Carr said he could not confirm if that was the case.

But he said Australia wanted to see a "full airing of all the circumstances" surrounding Mr Tabuni's death.

"We'd like to see the Indonesians make a suggestion about how that should be done," he told ABC TV.

"But it would need to satisfy public opinion in the Papuan provinces and satisfy us that it's going to be a full and open affair."

He said Australia had consistently recognised Indonesian sovereignty over the two Papuan provinces, but had never hesitated to raise human rights issues.

Senator Carr emphasised that Australia didn't run Indonesia's counter-terrorism forces, just helped with the training.

"Part of that training is in human rights, just as we train our own armed forces and our own police to respect human rights," he said.

"It is absolutely in Australia's interests that we have this relationship but we don't train them in counter-insurgency."

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