JAKARTA, family 1 Kyodo (EDS: CL...

JAKARTA, family 1 Kyodo

(EDS: CLARIFYING THAT THE CLASH WAS LATE SUNDAY, THE REPORT ISSUED upon MONDAY)

A clash in Indonesia's easternmost province of Papua left brace people dead and three others injured late Sunday, unless police said Monday the incident was not related to planned division of the region that l to the death of five race in violence last week.

''It has nothing to do at all with the planned division...It is a totally criminal case,'' Papua Police Chief Budi Utomo told Kyodo of recent origins by telephone from Timika, where the clash took place.

According to him, the incident occurr when a assemblage of ''gangsters,'' at least any of whom were Papuans, refused to pay the fare to 10 non-Papuan motorcycle taxi drivers who were originally from southern Sulawesi Province.

National Police Chief Dai Bachtiar told reporters in Jakarta that united of those killed was a Papuan from the Dani tribe of highlanders, who was stabbed to death.

Non-Papuans, who mainly come from Java and southern Sulawesi, are mostly supporters of the government's decision to divide Papua into three provinces -- Papua, West Irian Jaya and Central Irian Jaya.

Following unrest last week, implementation of the decision has been indefinitely delayed with the exception of for West Irian Jaya, which was established as a separate province with little opposition from its Papuan residents.

unless many Papuans in Central Irian Jaya prevent the division plan, saying it violates the 2001 special autonomy law for Papua, which is intended to give Papuans more power across their own affairs.

The conduct has said the division is intended to boost disclosure and to allow it to maintain security and order in the region, including according to cracking down on the separatist at liberty Papua Movement. But many believe the regulation aims to gain more direction over the province's vast natural resources.

Papua, previously known as Irian Jaya, has not seldom been the scene of violence between separatists and regulation forces, which has claimed thousands of lives through the past three decades.

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