The administration of the government was totally stopped. Thousands of tribal people closed down shopping centres, shops belonging to private companies and the government. They are demanding that the Regent of Sorong, Jhon Piet Wanane, step down from his position. So far, West Papuan people have suffered a lot because of contracts, agreements, concessions and other dirty politics by Indonesia in co-operation with foreign companies like Freeport MacMoRan, Rio Tinto, and Shell. Some weeks before, the Sentani Airport in the capital of the province was closed down by Sokoy tribe of Sentani.
Similar demonstrations are likely to happen throughout the island.
These two towns are hundreds of miles apart, with no road connecting them, so there is no way it was the same people in both cases. Tuesday, 1st February 2000 . Grosvenor House Hotel, London. Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid arrived in the UK today along with 10 ministers and 100 Indonesian corporate directors for a business seminar with 400 invited delegates from British industry. They were in the UK as part of a tour of Europe and Asia designed to drum up business and rescue the Indonesian economy from the doldrums.