T

his is in reference to “Closing economic gap: Urgent for Papua”, (the Post, June 11) by Marcellus Rantetana of Jayapura.

Indeed, this welfare gap between the natives and non-natives has been getting wider even though the central government had applied the special autonomy (Otsus) with billions budgeted in order to increase welfare for the Papuan people.

But unfortunately this Otsus budget seems to have become an opportunity for the regency government to use this amount of money for their own interests.

And it won’t stop and get bigger as a political blunder to discredit the central government by such an issue of “freedom”.

In doing so, this is becoming the evil circle developed by the regency government or the freedom organizations to accuse the central government for applying Otsus in Papua (even they know who is responsible for implementing Otsus).

The regency government used this opportunity to corrupt the Otsus budget, and finally the pro-freedom organization officially yelled: Freedom for Papua.

This evil circle has to stop now, starting with an effort to implement Otsus in Papua consistently.

Rafli Hasan
Jakarta