Indonesian cartoon hits Howard below the belt

CANBERRA - Jakarta's biggest-selling daily newspaper has stoked the growing dispute with Australia over Papua with a cartoon depicting Prime Minister John Howard and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer as mating dingoes.

The mass-circulation tabloid, infamous for libel suits and insults to its own politicians, carried the cartoon to underline Indonesian fears that Canberra is planning to pare Papua away in a repeat of East Timor.

It also reflects suspicion and resentment among Jakarta's elite, and popular anger over issues ranging from Timor to Australia's reaction to the jailing of Queensland drug smuggler Schapelle Corby.

The latest spark in a volatile relationship was the granting of temporary protection visas to 42 Papuans who arrived in an outrigger canoe seeking political asylum after renewed violence in their homeland.

Three Indonesian policemen and an intelligence officer were killed during a protest against the giant American-operated Grasberg gold mine - part of a broader fight for independence - with claims 16 students had later been killed in retaliation.

Furious at the decision to grant the visas despite reassurances by Australia that they were made under a process independent of the Government, Jakarta recalled Ambassador Hamzah Thayeb from Canberra.

Protesters have demonstrated at the gates of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, and yesterday the Foreign Affairs Department advised Australians to avoid the area. Australians have been urged to reconsider travelling to the archipelago because of terror attacks.

Rakyat Merdeka retaliated with its cartoon depicting Mr Howard and Mr Downer as dingoes having sex, with a mounted PM telling Mr Downer: "I want Papua, Alex. Try to make it happen."

The newspaper has attracted a large working-class readership by attacking the nation's elite and exposing corruption with a vigour that has resulted in its editor being prosecuted for criminal libel.

Rakyat Merdeka has compared former President Megawati Sukarnoputri to a leech and a cannibal, and likened President George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler.