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Issues: `Papua: Indonesia's great enigma'
The country's easternmost territory has been a bane of security and development for a long time
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em>The country's easternmost territory has been a bane of security and development for a long time. With Timor Leste separated from the republic and Aceh peacefully consolidating itself, Papua remains an enigma despite the numerous political initiatives taken at various levels.
The Jakarta Post's Ridwan Max Sijabat and Markus Makur look at the latest efforts to resolve the complex issues holding back this resource-rich region from realizing its development potential.
Your comments:
Talking to Jakarta is like "boiling stones or talking to the wall". What am I going to do? I'll fight for basic fundamental freedom: free from starvation, diseases and stupidity. These will be the ways to get complete freedom. I realize that politics is an umbrella system that embraces, organizes, protects and leads, but politics is not that easy to unravel. It is more a game than a policy for the common good.
My friends and I try to play it with a good heart and the right motivation, but we are always the losers. So I'll do it my way.
I'll fight for the sake of humanity through my expertise. I'll live not for myself, but for my children and my grandchildren in the land of the Cenderawasih. It's the fight of dignity and hospitable hosts.
Ino Ngari
Papua
Wamena is part of Papua in this country. The soldiers in each village have a duty to secure and to protect the people. But what usually happens in the villages is that the soldiers bring their weapons to gardens, to churches, to the markets, to schools, to parties, on the way to forests and wherever people live.
Soldiers stop taxis and ask to see driver's licenses and car tax documents, which is actually not their job. This is happening in Bolakme district of Jayawijaya regency.
What the police have to do is protect society wherever they are, not make them scared, destroy their lives, to oppress them, not take their rights and take control of them. The behavior of the soldiers does oppress society.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the army generals must tell the soldiers clearly about their duty in Papua before they are sent to work in Papua.
Onius Taboya
Papua
The soldiers make their own rules in Papua province. Many soldiers are on duty in every regency and district of Papua in order to protect or ensure the safety of society. Soldiers hold guns all the time and walk around the towns, especially in the highlands of Papua.
The soldiers ask drivers in every district to see their driver's license and car tax documents without any clear reason. In fact, it is not the soldiers' job to peruse local driver's licenses.
The soldiers threaten the people with guns, therefore native Papuans are scared to visit their family at night, and society lives in fear. Soldiers differentiate between native Papuans and others in the community. Papua province has been part of Indonesia since 1962 and native Papuans are also citizens of Indonesia and need to receive proper treatment like other citizens.
Dondy Helasbo
Papua
It seems like the musyawarah and mufakat (the deliberation to reach a consensus) strategy used before and during the Act of Free Choice in 1969 is being replayed behind the scenes in this transparent and democratic era. Tom and Franz confirmed that the behind-the-scenes meetings (a musyawarah and mufakat strategy) had made limited progress.
I think this is true because this is no longer the era of the Act of Free Choice where the Papuans at that time were under the threat of death if rejection was their choice. Now the interesting question is, why young Papuans are the ones who are actively promoting and proposing separation from Indonesia.
I think this indicates that the Indonesia government has failed to embrace Papuans with love and respect for four decades. The young generation shows their rejection not by reading from books or learning from schools, but, they themselves have been witnessing and experiencing injustice in all walks of life on their own land.
Papuans are now waiting for an invitation from the central government to have an open, transparent and fair dialog in order to come up with a comprehensive solution to the long-standing conflict in Papua. Dialog is the last channel because the 2001 law on special autonomy, considered a win-win solution to the conflict, has failed due to the lack of a strong commitment from the government to implement it.
Izak Morin
Jayapura
