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Jakarta Post

Kicking off frontier projects in a hostile land

When it comes to realizing a massive road project, nothing could match what governor general Herman Willem Daendels did during the Dutch colonial era

Rendi A. Witular (The Jakarta Post)
Papua
Tue, March 26, 2013

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Kicking off frontier projects in a hostile land

W

hen it comes to realizing a massive road project, nothing could match what governor general Herman Willem
Daendels did during the Dutch colonial era.

In 1808, Daendels wrapped up the construction of 1,000-kilometer of road, which linked the western and eastern tips of Java, within a year. Successful as it was, the project claimed the lives of thousands of Javanese through forced labor.

Fast forward two centuries later, an attempt to emulate the project is in motion, but without the forced labor.

A plan has been laid out to construct 1,520 kilometers of road in West Papua and Papua — the country’s most remote and under developed provinces renowned for their harsh terrain.

The roads, most of which will be constructed in alpine, swamp and jungle areas, are expected to open up the provinces as their isolation has long hampered their development.

On the frontline of the road project is the Presidential Unit to Accelerate the Development of Papua and West Papua (UP4B). In cooperation with the Indonesian Military (TNI), the unit will work with more than 1,000 soldiers from the Army’s Engineering Directorate (Zeni) to construct the roads within less than two years.

The project, estimated to cost around Rp 1.5 trillion (US$154 million), will also involve the Public Works Ministry and the regional public works agencies.

“[If we depended] on the ministry and the local agencies to build the roads, it would take around 60 years to complete. The TNI’s deployment would speed up the process at a relatively low cost as the military would not financially profit from the projects,” Up4b chief expert Doddy Imam Hidayat said recently.

“We have estimated that the cost would be 80 percent cheaper than if we used private contractors,” he explained.

According to Doddy, TNI commanders have agreed to the project, but a special presidential regulation is required as a legal basis for the TNI’s deployment during a time of peace.

While waiting for the regulation to be issued — expected within a couple of months — several officers from Zeni’s head office in Jakarta along with other regional offices in Papua, have been deployed to conduct terrain surveys.

“From our calculations, it’s going to be tough. We need to go into jungles and blow up several mountains to clear land for the roads,” Lt. Col. Winarno, who led the survey team, explained.

“Adding to the challenge are the threat of malaria and OPM [Free Papua Movement] separatists who are taking shelter in the jungles where we will pass through,” he said.

Should the military receive the President’s approval for the deployment, it will immediately receive the funds to purchase the necessary equipment for the project and transport them to the province’s remote areas. “We are going to load the gears, heavy machinery and vehicles into warships heading for Papua and then airlift them to the remote areas,” said Winarno.

“The first project is to have around 600 personnel working on a 255-kilometer strip of road divided into 15 sections. This is going to be the test for the longer roads,” he added.

Another challenge confronting the team is to keep the environment unharmed, including efforts to avoid intrusion into the Lorentz National Park, which was declared a world heritage site by UNESCO in 1999.

Lorentz, one of the most ecologically diverse national parks in the world, is located in Yahukimo regency where several sections of the roads will be constructed.

“We are not going to have the roads going through the national park. We should avoid it at any costs” said Doddy.

“If we are forced to cut trees during land clearance in other areas, particularly in jungles, the process will be strictly supervised and audited by officials from the Attorney General’s Office to ensure accountability,” he said.

Papua is known to be the source of exotic and highly expensive logs for lavish houses and furniture.

The rare merbau wood (intsia bijuga) for example, can cost upward of Rp 3.5 million per cubic meter on the black market.

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