With both the US and Australian governments recently expressing support for Indonesia’s handling of Papua, the government will likely stick to its guns and continue to emphasize security and military approaches, despite rhetoric that it would adopt a more comprehensive approach.
After a series of killings and riots that have battered the country’s poorest province during the last two months, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono hosted a much-awaited meeting of ministers on Thursday. The meeting was aimed at addressing the issues in Papua, but it only served to highlight ways to tame the province’s separatist movement, rather than focusing on resolving economic disparities between Papua and other regions or on corrupt practices in relation to the trillions of rupiah earmarked as special funds for Papua.
The first ministerial meeting on the state of the province was attended by representatives from the Defense Ministry, the National Police, the Indonesian Military (TNI) and the National Intelligence Agency (BIN).
“Among other distressing issues, the separatist movement has become the most pressing because it threatens national security,” Defense Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro told the meeting.
Despite decades of failure in rooting out the Free Papua Movement (OPM), the government continued to play down the strength of the separatists, with Papua Military Commander Maj. Gen. Erfi Triasunu saying the movement had less than 100 members.
Purnomo, who received assurances from US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Indonesia’s national integrity during their meeting in Bali last month, said that the ministry was able to identify the activities of the OPM, which he placed in three categories, an armed movement, a political movement at the domestic level and a political movement overseas.
“The armed and political campaigns are not large,” he said.
According to National Police security maintenance division chief Comr. Gen. Imam Sujarwo around 6000 police personnel were deployed in Papua with an additional 300 Mobile Brigade officers providing reinforcements from the National Police headquarters in Jakarta.
According to Erfi, around six battalions of military personnel were being deployed across Papua, all with the task of guarding the province from less than 100 armed separatists.
But in a conflicting statement, Erfi, acknowledged that most Papuan natives supported these separatists.
The two-star general explained that Papua’s local citizens had been silently supporting the OPM because the latter were also their own family members.
“The condition in Papua is more or less the same as during our guerrilla war for independence against the Dutch. We did not have many armed soldiers but we were supported by the people,” he added.
Erfi explained that the OPM had been obtaining weapons for some time, “In 2004 our [military] posts were raided and the OPM took our weapons. Besides that, they have also created homemade guns.”
Environment Minister Balthazar Kambuaya, who attended the meeting in his capacity as a native Papuan scholar, explained that Papua’s special autonomy, which had supposedly brought prosperity to the province, had failed.
“Papua’s special autonomy law is a good concept, however now we should ask the government to consistently implement it,” Kambuaya said.
Experts and activists have long complained that the special autonomy law failed to provide prosperity to the Papuan people, with trillions of rupiah, meant for the benefit of Papuans, stolen by officials in Jakarta and by Papuan elites in the province.
Centre for Strategic and International Studies senior analyst J. Kristiadi proposed that a government regulation be created to implement the autonomy law while a special team, directly reporting to the President, should be quickly established to monitor the implementation of the regulation.
“The autonomy must be reviewed every year or two so that we can see whether it is working to create prosperity for Papuans,” he told Antara.
Rights activist Hendardi said that it was time the government reduced or even withdrew its military presence in the province, as it had only fostered violence and suppression against Papuans. In turn, Papuans have asked for the right to self-determination due to what they see as injustices carried out against them.(rpt)