TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - President Jokowi's breakthrough in making Papua more open and free of long-running human rights violations deserves praise. This should not be blocked by his subordinates. A solution for Papua needs a firm hand in order to bring about a better Papua.
At the end of last week, President Jokowi 'broke a taboo' that had existed from the beginning of the New Order regime. He gave clemency to five Papuan political prisoners and declared that Papua was open to foreign journalists.
For decades, since the incorporation of the region into the Republic of Indonesia on May 1, 1963, Papua then known as West Irian automatically became a region under the control of the police and the army. Separatist violence, human rights abuses by the security forces and the horizontal conflicts that had existed beforehand, became part of the Papuan people's daily cycle. No one knows how many have died for nothing. What is clear is that the military approach to dealing with long-running separatism has spawned individuals and groups that take advantage of the situation.
Admittedly or not, giving foreign media the right to report from the country's easternmost region has brought human rights abuses out into the open, and has turned the spotlight on those responsible who have so far remained untouched by the law.
Even with abundant natural resources and huge amounts of regional autonomy funds, the people of Papua are still living in poverty, are minimally educated, are in poor health and lack advantages. From 2001 to 2014 some Rp57.7 trillion flowed to Papua and West Papua. Ironically, this had no effect on the human development index (HDI). It is still the lowest in Indonesia. Three years ago, the Papua and West Papua HDI was 65.86, making Papua the province with the lowest HDI (the national average was 73.29).
Corruption is a chronic problem in Papua. Last February all 44 members of the West Papua provincial legislature were indicted for graft. This mass corruption began when the legislators borrowed Rp22 billion from the Papua Doberai Mandiri (Padoma) company. This regional government enterprise is involved in oil palm plantations, coal and gas among other sectors. It subsequently came to light that the company's funds had been used not for oil palm plantations, but by the legislators to buy homes and cars, as well as to pay for meetings with constituents.
In order to change the repressive state of affairs that has continued for half a century, perhaps we could make use of the proposals submitted by the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) in 2009. Learning from the resolution of the separatist problem in Aceh, LIPI proposed a roadmap including recognition of a Papuan identity, an honest investigation of Papuan history, a dialog, reconciliation and trials of human rights abusers.
This is the reconciliation that would not only pave the way for those responsible for violence to be tried, but it would also be a solution to break the chain of violence itself. It would be an opportunity to build peace and prosperity in Papua.
Although he is not the first president to come up with the idea of clemency for political prisoners and guarantees of freedom to report from Papua, President Jokowi's initiative at the end of last week deserves praise. But it will still need a firm hand to ensure that his orders are not ignored once again by his subordinates, as it happened with the order to stop the criminalization of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). (*)
