JP Editortial : (In)secure Papua

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1) JP  Editortial : (In)secure Papua

2) Officials Urged To Act on Shootings in Fragile Papua
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http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/06/02/editortial-insecure-papua.html

1) Editortial : (In)secure Papua

The Jakarta Post | Sat, 06/02/2012 2:26 PM
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Development programs cannot proceed and are practically interrupted in times of conflict or violence. And dialogue, which is universally accepted as the best formula to settle problems of security and order, is not possible in situations of open conflict and violence.

Therefore, dialogue, which has been the commonly agreed mechanism to bring a permanent end to the prolonged, complicated problems of social and economic disparities in Papua (Papua and West Papua provinces) — oftentimes thus associated with sporadic demand for independence — is obviously interrupted. Worse is the fact that such security and order issues have never been properly addressed and in many cases, such problems have remained unsolved, with neither perpetrators nor masterminds having been uncovered or arrested.

The latest violence reported in Papua, where an Indonesian teacher and a German tourist were shot by unknown gunmen in two separate incidents, occurred on Tuesday.

The victim of the fatal shooting in Mulia, the capital of Puncak Jaya, was identified as Anton Arung Tambila, 36, an elementary school teacher. An unidentified man shot Arung in the head on Tuesday evening while he was serving customers at his sugar kiosk next to his house, killing him instantly.

Arung’s killing is the latest in a series of fatal shootings in Mulia, and the second civilian to fall prey to unidentified assailants in May alone. Arkilaus Refwutu, 48, a motorcycle taxi driver, was shot to death on May 17. A German tourist, identified as 55-year-old Pieter Dietmar Helmut, was shot several times in broad daylight by an unknown man while walking with his wife, Medina Pachon, on Jayapura Beach, about 10 kilometers from Jayapura’s downtown district. 

The question is why such violent acts and shooting sprees remain rampant in the country’s easternmost province despite the heavy presence of security personnel there?

There is no official data available on the number of security personnel in Papua, but it is estimated that some 16,000 Indonesian Military (TNI) troops are stationed in Papua. If combined with the police, roughly at the same staffing levels as the TNI, there are over 30,000 security personnel on duty in the province. The figure excludes hundreds of intelligence officers deployed there.

The overall figure of security personnel should therefore be more than enough to cover the two relatively scarcely populated provinces and leave no room for repetition of such shootings. The previously agreed-upon dialogue should continue — and be prioritized.


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2) Officials Urged To Act on Shootings in Fragile Papua
Ezra Sihite & Farouk Arnaz | June 02, 2012Authorities need to quickly arrest the perpetrators of a string of recent shootings in Papua, lawmakers and observers say, with the shooting of a foreigner on Tuesday sending a strong signal that the province is not safe. 

While the government badly wants to convince the international community that its westernmost province is secure, the police’s failure to stop the shootings or make any arrests shows otherwise, Tubagus Hasanuddin, deputy chairman of the House of Representatives’ Commission I, which oversees defense and international affairs, said on Wednesday. 

“We know that there is a certain group that wants to keep Papua in chaos. The police must arrest the members of the group quickly. Otherwise, the shootings will continue,” he said, without identifying the group he was referring to. 

Tubagus said the shootings had damaged Indonesia’s reputation abroad. 

A German tourist was shot three times while walking along a beach in an apparently random attack in Jayapura on Tuesday, the National Police said. 

Dietmar Pieper, 55, was at the beach with his wife, Eva Medina, 55, when an assailant opened fire at about 11:30 a.m. and then sped off in a Toyota Avanza minivan. Pieper survived the attack. 

That same day, a teacher at a primary school in the restive mountainous region of Mulia was shot. And in another incident, a man shot Anton Arung Tambila, 36, a teacher and kiosk owner, in the head. 

The bullet entered Anton’s cheek and remains lodged inside his head. Both victims survived the attacks, according to the police, who say they are still investigating. 

Since the start of the year, there have been at least six armed attacks on civilians and security personnel in Mulia, located in Puncak Jaya district, leaving six people dead. Among the attacks was an incident on April 8 when gunmen fired on a Trigana Air plane as it landed in Mulia, killing a journalist and injuring four other people. 

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has demanded that those responsible for the aircraft shooting be found, but police have yet to name any suspects in that case or any of the other shootings. 

“We don’t know why the police seem so impotent in handling killings in Papua,” said Hendardi, a human rights activist and chairman of the Setara Institute. 

Civil society groups allege the shootings in Puncak Jaya and around the Grasberg mine run by US-based Freeport-McMoRan are part of a rivalry between the police and military as they jockey for lucrative security payments.